Yugma: free web-conferencing for Mac and PC -

DS likes Yugma web conferencing...

Go Yugma yourself, or a colleague - Download Squad:

... It is extremely painless to setup, use, and it is free to do it. Yugma is a web-conferencing tool that has excellent annotation tools, easy controls, and a simple sign-up process. ... Yugma uses a fast-loading Java interface that looks great, responds without me clicking a million times on it, and operates much like a regular desktop app. The tools it sports include a colored highlighter (changeable colors), a nicely done colored pen, and some other gadgets to help you get your point across. I

...Yugma is currently available for Windows and Mac, and will be available soon for Linux.

All very well, but my real interest is remote maintenance of my mother's Mac Mini. You see, Yugma includes "remote support and troubleshooting". Ahh, yes. There's nothing like this for the Mac. I expect it won't be free forever, but if it will do remote support I'd be glad to pay.

I'll give the remote support featuers a test and update this post with my results.

Retrospect Professional's occult configuration files

I'm migrating to a new machine after a disk crash, and thanks to good backups I've got the data I need. Except what happened to that painful configuration data that drives my backup software? Well, as of version 6.5, Retrospect Pro's help file documentation didn't address that minor little issue.

The configuration data is stored in the hidden folder - "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Retrospect" which renders on restore as "Documents and Settings\All Users.WINDOWS\Application Data\Retrospect". Restore that folder, find a file named config65.dat and copy it into the appropriate folder on your new drive. If all the paths are the same, this might work for you.

Dumb.

OS X backup: good review discussion

FreeRideCoding releases SmartBackup - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Nice summary, including the comments.

Apple laptop reliability: Macintouch survey and sleep times

Every MacBook and MacBook Pro(Intel Mac) owner should review the latest impressive Macintouch reliability survey. Early adopters of the new machines basically got it in the back, but are not as outraged as one might expect. It might be they were an unusually savvy group and knew they were taking risks. The newest machines seem to have better than average laptop reliability -- perhaps a 10% rate of big defects in the first 6 months or so of life. This is outrageous by the standards of automobiles but is relatively good for the world of laptops.

One note deserves a lot of attention:

MacBook/MacBook Pro Reliability:

... Apple's MacBooks and MacBook Pros behave differently from their PowerPC predecessors when they are put to sleep, taking up to 30 seconds to go to sleep, as they write the contents of system memory to the hard drive. This enables a more efficient power saving mode of sleep (basically identical to a PC's 'hibernate' mode), but the implementation seems to have some troubles. Many 15' MacBook Pro owners report that their machines fail to sleep successfully, overheating while being carried in bags, eventually discharging the battery completely and potentially risking a fire hazard, as well as hardware damage...

Apple dropped the ball by not shouting this from the laptops. Mac veterans are used to smartly closing the laptop and walking off with it. You can't do that with the new machines. You have to close them and wait for the far-too-small sleep indicator to start "breathing". It's bad enough training oneself to do that, much less the rest of the family!

I suppose the "hibernation" mode reduces power drain on the sleeping machines, but it's a real step backwards and likely a major contributor to device failure.

In addition to the 30 second delay (longer the more memory you install), Spotlight and various background processes, including Bluetooth devices, can all stop sleep/hibernate from occurring. So the basic problem is compounded by a number of bugs and design flaws. I see similar problems on my XP laptop, but this is new for the Mac. Tossing a laptop with a spinning drive into a backpack is not a great thing ...

The authoritative review ends on an upbeat note. I did everything I could to keep my G3 iBook alive until the Core-2 Duo MacBook came out. I'm patting myself on the back now ...

... All in all, we see a distinct trend of improvement for all new MacBook models, which bodes well for the future. Apple's Core 2 laptops are showing fewer problems than the original Core Duo models did when they were similarly young. With their fast, 64-bit, Core 2 Duo processors, higher memory capacity and FireWire 800 on the 15" models, Windows compatibility and competitive pricing, all of Apple's latest Core 2 MacBooks and MacBook Pros appear to be good choices, considering reliability, as well.

HandBrake: simplified DVD to iPod ripping

Instant HandBrake got an O'Reilly app-of-the-year vote. Rip DVD to iPod. I'll try it with one of the kids on our next plane trip.

Update 12/29/06: I've done one movie in preparation for our flight and another one is pending. It's not fancy -- the "save other" option didn't do much on my machine. I left the defaults alone and it worked. The compression takes a very long time on a G5 iMac -- probably 3 times as long as the movie. It's a task that has to run overnight for a longer movie or a series of tv shows. The results look quite decent.

Monitoring hard drive temperature

Coding Horror makes a persuasive case for careful monitoring of Hard Drive Temperatures. I've had 3 laptop drives die this year (no data loss thanks to backups) -- I'm certain heat and movement were equally harmful.

CH likes DTemp for XP hard drive monitoring. I use a similar app on my G5.

Apple fixes the Aperture Trial

Apple's initial version of the 30 day free trial didn't include the 1.5.1 bug fixes. I ran into some of those bugs. They recently revised the trial -- now you can get the 1.5.2 version...

Apple - Aperture - Free Trial

If you download the current version of the Aperture Trial, you’ll receive Aperture 1.5.2. If you downloaded the Trial previously, you can download the new version, but the 30-day period of the trial will continue from the date of first usage. Please note that Aperture updates available via Software Update or the Aperture Download page can be used only to update purchased versions of Aperture and cannot be used to update Aperture Trial software.

Much better. My trial results were mixed, so I'm waiting to see what iLife '07 will be like. Chances are, though, I'll end up with Aperture.

Update 12/18/06: I decided to try again with 1.52. I removed all traces of Aperture (spotlight is handy) and reinstalled. Alas, despite the above text, the link in the download was to version 1.5, NOT 1.5.2. How obnoxious.

Update 12/18/06b: I got 1.52. The bug is in Apple's trial registration number email. The link there downloads Aperture 1.5. I'd used it because Apple's website died the on my attempt, so I had to use the email link. I figured this might be the problem, so I registered again and this time the 'success' page did appear. There's a download link on that page, it delivers 1.52. To install this you must delete the 1.5 version, but you don't need to do anything else. It will then install as an 'update' and will update existing libraries.

Google's photo sharing now offers printing and video uploads

Most of my photos are in SmugMug, but I've been grumpy about their lackadaisical approach to iPhoto integration. Still, they're pretty good. My next choice has been Google's photo sharing service - Picasa Web. The iPhoto integration there is excellent. They didn't offer printing, however. Until now ...

Official Google Blog: Holiday goodies from Picasa Web Albums

.... Now, when you or anyone else views photos in Picasa Web Albums, there’s an option to order prints directly from the site. We currently offer prints and products from Shutterfly and PhotoWorks, but we’ll be adding more soon.

Other new features include video upload for easy sharing (it’s just like with photos—select them in Picasa and click the “Web Album” button) and searching tools. Now you can search over your own captions, album titles, and album descriptions...

iPod longevity predictor

iPod Death Clock - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).

I recently read a medical journal article on a similar algorithm for predicting the longevity of persons over 65 yo.

iPod Update 1.2.1: An unknown error occurrred

This is only supposed to happen with Microsoft products.

I plugged my iPod video into iTunes 7.02 and I was told an update was pending. It included 'bug fixes'. The update seemed to proceed as normal, but the installer asked me for admin privileges to modify iTunes. After I entered my un and pw I got a lovely error message: "The iPod could not be updated. An unknown error occurred (1417).

The iPod then reset, and appeared to have updated itelf to 1.2.1. Hmmpph. I could referesh it entirely, but the USB iPods take forever to load (Firewire was way faster, no matter what the unknowning claim about USB 2.0).

So what happened? I can't download and reaply the update, Apple doesn't support that any more. Distribution is now only via iTunes. The OS X iPod update files are now in \Library\iTunes\iPod Software Updates. There are two identically sized files there: iPod_13.1.2.ipsw and iPod_13.1.2.1.ipsw. My guess is that 13.1.2 from 10/12/06 came with iTunes 7.02, and that 13.1.2.1 is a recently released fix to a but in 13.1.2.

The iPod says it's running 1.2.1. I think I'll wait and see what happens ...

Update 12/14/06: The 1417 error is very common on Apple's Discussion site -- but for Windows, not Mac. There's a hint enabling disk access may lead to the error message.

Creating a user-friendly find tool for OS X

I've been gradually beating OS X into something that's relatively user friendly. It's quite a struggle, and I'll summarize it at some point. The experience reminds me again how I miss the unequalled brilliance of the pre-switcher (eg. pre-pre-multifinder) Mac OS, or even of the clever GeoWorks 1st level GUI. Heck, even Simple Finder classic would be welcome (a pox upon Simple Finder OS X).

One thing I've wanted is a simple Find function that would search documents and email. Spotlight is too geeky and searches too many areas. The embedded Find you get when typing in a folder bar, or the Find you get from Cmd-F or the Finder menu is a bit better, but not simple enough. MoRU is almost right, with a few changes it could become a very novice friendly tool.

None are quite right however. The best I could come up with was a tweaked Smart Folder, unfortunately it doesn't search mail (more about that). Here's what I did:

1. Create a smart folder called 'Find Documents'. Put it on the desktop.
2. For the initial search text enter 'Type your search here'.
   
3. Right click on the center of the window and choose View Options.
4. Set View to icon only, make the text displayed 16 point and the icons very big.
5. Save the Smart Folder.
6. Right Click 'Get Info'. Click 'Locked'.

The resulting file sits on the desktop and is easy to see. Open it and see the instructions. Click there and type. It's locked so it can't be saved and overwritten.

BTW, the Get Info dialog will show part of the Spotlight query represented by this folder. The exclusion of com. apple.mail.emlx, I think, is what prevents Smart Folders from returning results from Mail.app.

Google takes the domain name business

Hey GoDaddy! Here's my Promo Code from Google - Digital Inspiration - Amit Agarwal

Good summary. Google is the spot now for most new domain registrations. I wonder when they'll offer switching services?

Putting the OS X trash on the desktop

Bin-it 1.2.1 – Mac OS X – VersionTracker looks like the best option for putting the trash on the desktop. The other alternatives are a script solution and exposing the .Trash folder so one can create a shortcut to it.

I may do this for my mother -- the dock is such an annoying usability mess.

OS X esoterica: key mouse combos and the Dock

Somewhere some eccentric geek has memorized every known mouse/keyboard/gui interaction in OS X. They belong on reality tv -- the list is very long. Now comes a new list for the Dock. If Andy doesn't read this first I'll be able to stun him with geek wizardry (emphases mine):

Mac OS X: Additional features of the Dock

... to press the mouse button means that you hold the button down until the desired action happens.

....

* Command-click
Reveals the original item in the Finder.

* Command-Option-click
Hides other open items, in addition to click action.

...

* Option-press
Force Quit replaces Quit in menu, in addition to press action.

* Shift-click
This applies to minimized windows only. The item is de-minimized in slow motion. You can see the item minimized in slow motion by pressing Shift while minimizing it.

* Shift-drag
When used on Dock separator, changes Dock position on screen (left, bottom, right).

* Option-drag
When used on Dock separator, resizes Dock to common icon sizes (128 by 128, 64 by 64, 32 by 32, 16 by 16).

...

* Command-drag a Dock item from the Dock
Copy the item without removing it from the Dock.

* Command-drag an item to the Dock
Create a Dock item without moving (sliding) existing Dock items while dragging. You might use this feature when dragging to a folder icon on the Dock, for example.

* Command-option-drag a file to an application's Dock icon
Attempt to open the file with the application regardless of file type or what application the file is associated with (if any). The application may or may not be able to open the file.

Update 12/14/06: I've since found that some of the same key combinations work with the Spotlight results drop down. In particular cmd-click opens the item in its containing folder. Now THAT is a great shortcut.

Configuring Parallels in Coherence mode

In coherence mode individual applications appear in their own windows next to OS X apps. I've not tried it yet, but a user has detailed what they did to optimize the experience: Hack Attack: How to run Windows and Mac apps side-by-side with Parallels - Lifehacker